


Miles and Miles

by Cornerstone13



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Party and Kobra have issues, platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerstone13/pseuds/Cornerstone13
Summary: Something is wrong with Party and Jet is worried. Kobra gives out infomation which makes Jet worry just a little bit more. Jet goes to see Party and comfort and cuddles ensue.(Ghoul and the Girl are only mentioned)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	Miles and Miles

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This is my first fic and I have to say, I'm very excited to be posting! I would like to thank my amazing beta reader @kryptidkat on Tumblr (also an amazing author on here) Thank you for your patience and advice, it was a huge help and I coudn't have done it without you!
> 
> Without further ado, let's get on with the story. : )

Jet Star hadn’t seen Party all morning. This wasn’t wholly unusual for the crimson haired blazer, especially as he had been at a Mad Gear concert the night before, but still, Jet worried. He sighed and hurled himself out of the corner booth he had selected to fret in and set about trying to find Kobra. If anyone knew where and how Party was, it would be the Kid.

Jet found said killjoy on a stepladder with half his body inside the diner’s ceiling. “Hey Kid I was wondering if-” Jet cut himself off when it became obvious that Kobra wasn’t reacting to what he said. Jet kicked the bottom of the ladder and tried again. “Kobra! Come out of there would you? I’m trying to ask you something!”

Jet’s efforts were rewarded when moments later, a grey, suspiciously straight-faced Kobra Kid emerged from the ceiling. Jet bit back a sigh of resignation at the sight of the mini dust storm billowing out into the diner following Kobra. “Do I….do I even want to ask what you’re doing?” asked Jet.

“Probably best if you don’t and just let what is happening happen,” said Kobra.

Great. Definitely one of Ghoul’s tricks then.

“Anyway, what did you want to ask?” said Kobra.

“I was wondering if you knew where Party was? I mean, I know he was out last night but I don’t think even Ghoul could have slept through his return.” Jet said with a fond chuckle.

Party was many things but subtle he was not. Jet had started awake when the sky was just lightening, to a crash that sounded like boxes and boxes of metal scraps free-falling on to the floor. He snatched up his ray gun and edged towards his door, he heard a slight movement from next door.

He opened his door an inch and made eye contact with the girl. He raised a finger to his lips and she nodded her head as she gazed with wide eyes at him. Jet was just about to launch himself out of his door when a dishevelled Party came into view.

Jet sagged with relief and opened his door fully to confront him.  
“Party! What did you do? That sounded like a friggin’ freight train!”Jet whisper shouted. Party looked at Jet like he was seeing straight through him. He wasn’t all there, like the ray gun was charged but no one was firing.  
Jet lifted an arm to grab Party’s shoulder, to bring him back to himself from wherever he went but stopped himself when he saw Party flinch back.

“Alright,” Jet sighed, dropping his arm and taking a step back.”Alright. Go see your brother. He’s probably awake too now.”  
Party met his eyes for a brief second before dropping his gaze to the floor and shuffling off to Kobra’s room. Jet was just about to close his door when he made eye contact with the girl, still peering from around her door.  
“Go to sleep girlie, try and catch a couple more hours before Ghoul decides it’s morning.” Jet reached over and ruffled her out of control curly hair before closing his door and dropping off to sleep Party’s strange behaviour but a distant, worrying memory.

Jet hadn’t seen or heard from him since.

“I left him in my room,” said Kobra, bringing Jet out of his musings. “He’s having an off day so he’s staying in with me.”

Jet’s heart sunk. Both Kobra and Party were cityborn. They didn’t escape into the zones until way after BL/ind had indoctrinated them into the city way of life, which also came with the fun bonus of mind altering pills. The two brothers had been assets in the eyes of The Director and as a consequence had begun preparation for becoming exterminators. Exterminators were the elite, trained to kill within split seconds, to have perseverance and determination beyond all normal human boundaries. Part of this training included taking daily ‘medication’ that heightened all the senses. Pills that strengthened eyesight to that of an eagles - able to see for miles around with the clearness of crystal. Drugs to make hearing rival that of dogs - able to hear the shifting of sand in the zones, to hear the footsteps of a lone Killjoy. Kobra and Party had been subjugated to these and more for years before they escaped, but the effects were permanent.

“Is that really best? Just leaving him to sort it out himself?” Jet asked, a small knot of anger forming in his stomach. “Party has been there for you when it’s been too much and now you’re just leaving him?!”

“Like you really know how it is for us? Tell me Jet, do you know what it’s like to be able to hear every little hitch of breath from the girl when she has a bad dream? How about being able to hear the hum from the neon lights from Batt City? Come on Jet, wouldn’t you just love to be able to see a drac patrol coming for you from twelve miles away and having to decide whether to tell your crew or not? I’m sure you’d cope real well!” The silence following Kobra’s outburst was deafening.

Jet and Ghoul had both noticed how the brothers had days where they just wouldn’t be seen. Sometimes it was after a particularly bad clap, or just out of the blue. They had tried asking the remaining brother, but all they got in response was _“he’s having a bad day. He’ll be out soon, just needs some alone time.’"_ Eventually they just came to accept it; luckily it only seemed to be one of them at a time, and they would see them again, looking a bit worse for wear, but otherwise alright.

“Kobes, look I’m sorry ok? I know I don’t understand but I want to. I just need to see him. Please. I won’t make any noise and I’ll be quick.”

Kobra dropped his eyes to the floor and sighed forcefully through his nose. “Fine,ok. Go see him. Just don’t blame me when he starts screaming at you.”

Jet reached out a hand to grip the other’s bicep. “Thank you, Kobra. I’ll make sure he’s fine.”  
Kobra gave him a tight lipped smile and edged his way around Jet to get to the open door, through which Jet could hear Ghoul painting the air blue followed by the maniacal laughter of the girl. Jet side-eyed the tall killjoy by his side. “This sounds like your problem now. I’m checking on Party.” With that Jet made his quick escape into cooler depths of the back rooms of the diner.

Jet wasn’t prepared for the state he found Party in. The red-headed killjoy was pacing the cramped space of his brother’s room, long, artistic fingers digging and grabbing harshly at his scalp and hair. Jet hovered in the doorway, unsure of whether he should enter, when he saw Party stop and bring his hands down from his head. From where Jet was, all he could see was Party stopped in the middle of the room, staring down at his hands seemingly in shock, and Jet took that as his cue to go in.

“Party? You ok there?” Jet asked, moving cautiously into the room. He tried to make his voice as soothing as possible, as it was a well known habit of both Kobra’s and Party’s to attack when they were distressed.

Despite Jet’s best attempts at appearing as non-threatening as possible, Party still whirled around and put his fists up, as if to fend off an enemy.

“Woah woah Party! It’s just me, it’s just Jet Star. I’m sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Can I come closer?” Jet saw Party going down, before Party seemed to register it himself and was there to catch him, before his knees made impact with the floor.

“Hey Jet” came the thin, reedy voice of Party, a far cry from his usual cocky tone. Jet got to his knees in front of Party, arms still underneath his. Going by the way he’s swaying,’ Jet thought,, ‘there’s no way he can hold himself up properly.

“Hey Party. I was worried about you, haven’t seen you since last night. You all good?” Jet asked, concerned eyes searching the other’s face for any clue. His eyes snagged on Party’s hairline. A thin line of blood was slowly but surely making its way down the side of Party’s face. “Hey roadster, mind if I check your head a second? I promise to be gentle.”

Party looked at him from under heavily hooded eyes and nodded once. That was all the confirmation Jet needed before he was gently pulling Party’s head down so he could see the top. In between the crimson strands and the darker roots just starting to appear, Jet could see a couple of long gouges where Party had raked his nails.

Jet sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Oh Party, what have you done? Come on, let me get you cleaned up out front.” Jet tried to stand, his arms still full of deadweight killjoy, when Party began trying to drag himself back to the floor. “Woah, woah Party stop! Stop! You’re going to hurt yourself!” Jet did the only thing he could think of and helped Party back down. Jet shifted himself so that Party ended up in his lap and wrapped his arms around him.

Jet sat in the middle of Kobra’s room with one of the most notorious rebels in the entire desert curled up and trembling like a small child in his arms. “Party…” Jet began, using the voice he knew worked on the girl when she had a nightmare, “Party please, I just want to make sure you’re sparky. The light’s better out front and if you’re worried about anyone seeing you, well, Kobes is out with Ghoul and Girlie blowing up Destroya knows what. There’s really no one else here except us.”

Jet peered down at Party’s face from between his wild curls. His face was pressed into Jet’s arm and Jet could feel his stuttering breath on the dark leather of his sleeve. He was so focused on watching the paleness of Party’s neck and the scrunch of the half eyebrow he could see, that he almost missed Party speak.

“Loud.”

Jet jerked back and looked down at the heap in his arms. “What?”

Party shifted his head so that Jet was almost cradling him. “‘Is too loud. All of it. Too loud.”

Jet knew that this was what Kobra must have been referring to when he said that the zones were just too loud sometimes. Jet felt a pang of sympathy go through his chest - how often had Party and Kobra put on brave faces and pushed through on not-so-bad-but-not-so-great days? How many times had he and Ghoul shrugged it off as them being hungover or just simply overdramatic? Jet felt horrible. If only he had known what the brothers were going through sooner! He knew he probably couldn’t have done anything to help, but still, he would have tried.

Jet was brought back to himself by Party squirming out of his lap to sit against the wall next to him. Jet took a second to examine the side profile he got of Party; his head was tilted right back against the wall and Jet could still see faint lines of pain around his face where he was still holding himself taut. “Alright, we won’t go out but I want to check you over when you’re feeling up to it, deal?” Jet asked.

“Shiny,” came the mumbled reply. Jet scooted himself back against the wall so he was next to Party. He fished around in his pocket for a minute before producing a semi-clean rag. He leaned over carefully, making sure not to jostle Party any more than he had to. Jet gently cleaned off as much of the blood running down Party’s face as he could. Eventually he finished and fell back against the wall with a sigh. “I’m never going to understand you,” Jet said into the silence.

Party’s only response was to roll his head in Jet’s direction. A questioning furrow of dark eyebrows was all Jet needed to carry on.

“I’ll never understand how you can go to Mad Gear’s concerts and you will be fine for the night, and yet some normal day at the diner is enough to send you into a complete meltdown! And that’s the other thing! Why do you still go to concerts? Dr. D is always playing music and true, some of it is totally out there and you have to deal with his weird-ass ramblings sometimes, but there are others! Hot Chimp and Newsie are just about reachable on the waves from here and Cherri is always off spouting his poetry. I just don’t understand, Party, why do you do it?” Jet looked at Party in desperation. He didn’t like any member of his crew hurting, especially when it was something they were doing to themselves.

Party let out a tired sounding sigh and pushed himself up straighter. “The concerts aren’t the problem, Jet. Th-” Party laid a hand on Jet’s leg, just as he opened his mouth in indignation. Jet shut his mouth and sank back against the wall and side-eyed him dubiously. “The concerts aren’t the problem. The problem is what comes after. When you’re in the building with the music, nothing else matters. You don’t hear the music, you feel it. The beat moves you along and you have no choice but to just let it. All sound is drowned for the hour or two you’re inside and for that short time, everything is free. It’s afterwards that hurts. Once you leave, the beat will start to fade, you’ll be able to keep it with you for half an hour, a full one if you’re lucky. After that fades, the world comes rushing back in louder than ever and it's all I can do to keep myself from screaming, just to hear nothing again.”

Jet openly stared at him. It was rare to get Party to open up; it was rarer still for him to open up about something that hurt him. “But I still don’t understand. It causes you this much pain, and yet you’re still carrying on with it? What’s the point?”

Party held his eyes for a second, then dropped his head and let a ghost of a smile cross his features. “Tell me Jet, why do you still go to the roof every other night trying to see the stars, when you know it's too light and it will only make you depressed? How about why Ghoul still drinks too much sometimes and loses control, even though he hates himself for it afterwards? Or why Kobra still goes out and races in the derbies even though he knows the risks and hates being away from here for too long? Tell me what the point is to all that, Jet? We do it because this is our lives now and we have to prove BL/ind wrong. We can make a life out here, heck we’ve even got a kid! _That_ is the point, Jet.”

Jet was speechless as he stared at Party. Despite the all-to paleness of Party’s skin and the slight purple bags under his eyes, this was the fearless spitfire he knew. He felt his worries about the two brothers drift off and he settled back against the wall and draped his arm around Party’s bony shoulders. Yes, he thought, Party was right.

They can survive. They will survive. And by the Witch will they enjoy it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. As I said, this is my first time posting, so if you have any feedback please put it in the comments (alternatively you can come yell at me on Tumblr at Clocks-are-our-friends) 
> 
> Kudos also makes me smile!


End file.
